CompuRead Level 3 - Stories 1-10

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

Level 3 – Story 2, They Were on Beautiful Bay. Long /ay/ Sound.

Step 1, Main Idea, A Friend Can Be More Than Just a Friend.

Prestory Background, Step 2, talks about what a bay is and how it protects boat and ships. One day, Kay, one of the girls in our story, meets Melody. They develop a great friendship. Melody is temporarily handicapped, due to an accident and will had Dr. Shaw fix her back. Kay helps out when Melody is gone.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Without Interruption, shows how words are used to “paint” a picture of a story and how to weave the story line into a meaningful story.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, Step 4, shows how word contractions are used and provides many exercises and examples for the student to fully understand the concept of making two words into one.

Wheelchair safely rules are also emphasized along with drawing conclusions with riddles, spelling, addressing an envelope and using capital letters, matching definitions of words, vowels sounds /ay/ and /ee/, root words, sit, set and sat, and other exercises designed for students to become fluent readers.

In Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, gives the opportunity for the student to practice their newly learned writing and word mastery skills by writing about being more than just a friend. Many “story starters” are given along with synonyms to assist the student in their writing efforts. As with all writing activities, an opportunity is given to illustrate their story composition.

Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, Step 6, provides many opportunities for the student to practice writing composition through comparing, using idioms and matching the meaning to the proper word, understanding what a proper name is and how they’re spelled and phrases. As with all Phrases in the CompuRead series, they compare a lower vocabulary phrase to a higher phrase, thereby comparing the differences in wording and expression. For example, the phrase, “could swim,” is reworded with higher vocabulary as, “able to move along in the water using arms and legs.”

Hundreds of example phrases similar to this are throughout the entire CompuRead program and builds the student’s vocabulary as they progress throughout the program.

Science Background, Step 7, tells about the development of the Aqualung and begins when it was first invented by Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan in 1943.

Step 8, Story Mapping again reviews the story telling and writing process and shows the various aspects of writing and how a story is composed. Story Mapping is and outstanding and effective form of outlining a fiction or non-fiction story. It provides the author with a visual and word structure composition to form any written or spoken communication.

Home Fun, Step 9 contains activities the student can be involved with at home to assist in his learning to read process. Throughout the CompuRead program are found hundreds of fun examples that can be used in the home that parents and teachers can effectively use to enhance the learning process for any student.

The PDF Reading Skills Review provides an effective way for the student and teacher to review the concepts learned and tracks the student’s progress through the CompuRead Courses reading program. It’s a step-by-step listing that is reviewed with the student to ensure all presented concepts are learned effectively, thereby being able to confidently go on to the next story in the CompuRead series.

The PDF Certificate of Completion is a document that can be printed and signed by the student and teacher to confidently show to family, students and teachers that the student has mastered the many reading and writing skills within each story and level. This is an outstanding confidence booster for any young student in the learning to read process.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

Level 3 – Story 3, When I Was Eight

/eigh/ sound

Step 1, the Main Idea, “I can appreciate modern transportation,” shows the student the many and varied modes of transportation and how it once was used daily in our lives.

The Prestory Background, Step 2, shows when this story takes place in the early part of the 20th century and is a true experience of the author. It’s about riding in a horse-drawn sleigh and how wonderful it was to ride along with her parents at her side, feeling like a queen.

At that time the sleigh was the main means of transportation in the winter until cars were invented.

You could hear the sleigh for miles as the bells on the sleigh and horse jingled in the crisp open air.

The ride was very smooth in the winter over the frozen ice and snow, but in the spring when the ice was melting, the road was quite bumpy due to the road not being maintained.

The people would sing as they rode along in the frozen air. Many songs have been composed about sleigh riding. One such song, “Jingles Bells” is one of those songs.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated, demonstrates how the story could be read and shows word rhyming and meter.

The Phonics, Writing and Spelling section, Step 4, emphasizes the /eigh/ sound and shows how this sound is used throughout English in many other words as well with the Long a sound. The short /u/ sound is also reviewed in this story.

In Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, gives the opportunity for the student to practice their newly learned writing and word mastery skills by writing about transportation, both in times past and modern. Many “story starters” are given along with synonyms to assist the student in their writing efforts. As with all writing activities, an opportunity is given to illustrate their story composition.

Step 6, Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, emphasizes choosing word pairs and shows the many differences in words, how they are used, spelled and pronounced. Dozens of examples are provided to show how words are used in sentence construction using the proper verb tense.

Homonyms can be confusing to a young student, and CompuRead shows how they are used in sentences and how they are properly spelled.

Spelling is also emphasized and this section provides exercises in ‘proof reading’ for the young student to spot misspelled words on sight.

Several other exercises are given to show the student how the English language is composed and used including Idioms. Understanding English and the many word uses is critical to becoming a master communicator. For example, how many meanings does the term, “break no ice” or “cut no ice” mean? This is just a small sampling of an introduction to the usage of idioms in English.

Throughout the CompuRead program are provided Phrases of lower vocabulary and is recomposed into a higher vocabulary phrase, showing the student how diverse and expressive the English language is. For example, the phrase, “had a big red sleigh,” is reworded showing a higher vocabulary in, “possessed a large crimson carriage for use in the snow.” There’s thousands of phrases similar to this throughout the CompuRead program.

The Science Background, Step 7, talks about ice and sleigh runners.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and breakout the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency. In this story, Home Fun continues with reading practice, not only to himself but also orally to others. Remember to read orally to your child as well.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

Level 3 – Story 4, Could We or Maybe

Step 1, the Main Idea, is “I will use common sense reasoning.”

It emphasizes the use of the many ‘vowel consonant e’ words throughout the English language. Some of these words are quite simple, yet many others are more complex with many syllables.

The Prestory Background, Step 2, shows how some sentences just don’t make sense and how to make good decisions using sentences that actually make sense. It also shows the difference between having common sense and being “book smart” can be very important in life.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, highlights the many and varied sentences that need to be read to make sense of their meaning. Common sense plays a big role here in discovering how words are used.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, in Step 4, provides many sentence and word play examples showing the reader how words can be used to construct a sentence that actually makes sense.

Here in this section, Pantomiming is introduced. Throughout CompuRead, pantomiming is used to assist the shy student in learning about acting and art to assist them in the reading process.

Other word types are: ape, ase, ate, ave, aze, and ck.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition.

Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, Step 6, presents many examples of sentences and their composition and how they relate to common sense reasoning. Among many other parts of English, Phonograms are introduced and discussed how they are used.

Standardized Reading Comprehension Tests are introduced in this section and demonstrates how they are used and scored. Phrases and vowel consonant e words are continued.

In the Science Background, Step 7, students are shown and introduced to action words and how they are used to compose sentences. Exercises are given to the student for writing and illustration practice.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and section out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency. In this story, Home Fun continues with reading practice, not only to himself but also orally to others. Remember to read orally to your child as well.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3 – STORY 5, THE MOTHER’S DAY GIFT

The Mother’s Day Gift is all about taking your talents and developing them throughout your life to earn a living.

Step 2, Prestory Background, encourages children to explore, do things that are different, see other things that they haven’t seen before and to stretch their experiences to see what they might be good at.

It teaches them about practice and how mastery is accomplished, especially when just starting out in life. It demonstrates how to picture yourself doing something that’s great, and actually doing it.

It teaches about self confidence and that developing a skills takes work. It emphasizes that the great masters of the arts, for example, did not start out by being a virtuoso. They worked at becoming great by lots of practice.

Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, Step 3, takes a look at a family wanting to give a gift to their mother and the children did not have any money to purchase anything. They all put their heads together to see what they could do and came up with using their own talents to earn the money for their mother’s gift.

All the children participated in their own way and put on a neighborhood talent show. It was very successful and they earned the money due to their working together and innovation and ideas.

Step 4, Phonics, Writing and Spelling, delves into the mechanics of writing, e.g., story settings and how they are important to the story development. It introduces likenesses and differences and how to compare each in the story composition.

In addition, this section emphasizes how the words have, has, had and done are used and in what context.

Step 4 also teaches spelling about dropping the final e in some words and adding the ing ending. Other important concepts are, one syllable words, multi syllable words vs. compound words along with sight words and phonetically regular spelling words. Variant ending words are also discussed. Many other spelling concepts are discussed appropriate to this age and reading level.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition. It shows situations for starting a story, synonyms for the word talent and an opportunity for a creative art activity through story illustration.

Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, Step 6, presents the many meanings of words and how they are related to each other in sentence composition.

It also has several phrases that develop the readers understanding and vocabulary by comparing low and higher vocabulary words and sentences.

Step 7, Science Background, talks all about how Mother’s Day came to be. This is a very interesting discussion on how we came to honor our mothers not only on Mother’s Day, but throughout the year.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and section out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency. In this home fun activity it talks all about how to research a topic and where one might go to find relevant information about a topic. This is a very good discussion on the current methods of research and can lead to more advanced research in the years ahead, especially in the middle and high school years and beyond.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3 – STORY 6, SOMETHING RARE

Step 1, Main Idea. This is a wonderful story about a grandfather and this grandsons and how they were entrusted to keep a very special secret. It discusses when and when not to keep secrets and under what circumstances they need to be kept or should not be kept. A very good informational discussion all children need to understand.

The Prestory Background, Step 2, discusses the legend of the Spanish Conquistador and their search of gold in the new world. It shows how they used the native people to work for the Spanish and forced them to mine and dig for the gold.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, details how the Grandfather shared and trusted his grandsons with the great secret of a valuable deposit of old Spanish treasure inside a cave where a family of cougars lived.

This is a wonderful adventure story, filled with animal tenderness and human danger and how the two brothers faced the dangers of the cougars and making it out alive from the cave to tell the tale.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, Step 4, concentrates on spelling and handwriting along with Homonyms found within this story. In addition, many r-controlled words and vowel consonant e words are again presented for continued practice and word familiarization. Many other word configurations are also taught including double consonants, single and multi syllable, contractions, compound and sight words, blends, root words and many other word variations a fluent reader needs to fully understand.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition. It shows situations for starting a story, synonyms for the word talent and an opportunity for a creative art activity through story illustration.

Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, Step 6, presents and opportunity for creativity in story retelling and encourages the learner to use voice inflection, sounds of animals as they describe the cougars growling. They are encouraged to describe the surroundings where all the scenes take place in order to provide a visual picture of the story’s background.

Comprehension Closure, Auditory Comprehension, Phrases are also presented for a more immersed reading experience.

Step 7, Science Background, explains all about gold, caves and cougars. A fascinating educational experience for a child learning new and exciting things through reading.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and section-out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency and how it’s obtained.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3 – STORY 7, BUGS IN A PIE

The Main Idea, Step 1, shows a very important concept every child needs to understand; “When we don’t do the work, we don’t get the reward.” And many times consequences will follow our non-action.

Step 2, Prestory Background, explains why it’s important to be trusted to do something that you’ve been asked to do and to actually follow-up with that task with your personal actions.

In this story, Jon, the young boy, is tasked to accomplish a specific task, but through his in-action, dire consequences follow and all involved suffer from his inability to have followed through with this task.

It also shows and emphasizes how there are many ways to remind us to accomplish assigned tasks and how good one feels when that task is accomplished.

This story’s theme delves into personal responsibility and how one needs to take action, however so small.

Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, Step 3, provides insight to Jon’s actions, or lack of action, that was entrusted to him to actually accomplish his assigned task. As with all stories in Level 3, the student is provided with another font to read and become familiar with the many ways the printed word is written. This font used in the CompuRead program is Slant Manuscript.

Step 4, Phonics, Writing and Spelling, delves into alphabetical order and is shown through creative poetry.

Again spelling is emphasized through multi and single words, sight words and contractions.

Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, Step 5, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition. It shows situations for starting a story, synonyms for the word talent and an opportunity for a creative art activity through story illustration.

Step 6, Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, in Bugs in a Pie, provides the student to become familiar with multiple meanings of words, such as in the word “tie.” As with many words in English, they have several, and sometimes up to 30-40 or more meanings, depending on the context of the sentence and subject matter. A fluent reader needs to fully understand that this is how English has been composed and through vocabulary study and practice, the many word meanings are understood.

Again, Step 6, provides a wealth of lower and higher vocabulary words to become familiar with that leads to fluent reading and comprehension.

The section Science Background, Step 7, talks about insects and explains harmful and non harmful insects and how man controls insects dealing with agriculture and food production.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and break-out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency and how it’s obtained through the many and simple activities within the home.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3 – STORY 8, LITTER IN THE BEAUTIFUL PINES

Step 1, Main Idea, “I will help the little forest animals that share our world,” shows the importance of keeping the environment clean and well maintained for all who use it. The world’s mountains, beaches, streets, parks and many other public places need to be kept up for all to use.

The Prestory Background, Step 2, provides many suggestions that we all can use to keep our forests and public places clean and free from our discarded items.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, provides the story’s narrative and describes the concerns of the animals when man comes to visit their forest homes. Many times the campground is left with discarded items all over the campsight. It emphasizes what is happening and how man to correct the problem the little forest animals find. The story is also composed in the Slant Manuscript font for the reader’s practice in reading and viewing and how the many text variations that letters and words may appear.

Here, again, the Reading Skills Review certificate is an integral part of the student’s reading education. It’s designed to review all skills learned to ensure the student fully understands the concepts taught and is ready to proceed to the next story that builds upon previously acquired skills.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, Step 4, concentrates on; vowel and consonants sounds, digraphs and rules, blends, compound and sight words, paragraph comprehension and contractions.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition. It shows situations for starting a story, synonyms for the word share and an opportunity for a creative art activity through story illustration.

Step 6, Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, provides the student with verbal directions with practice in hearing directions and being able to follow them. This gives practice to the student in interpretive skills in executing verbal commands. Step 6 also provides practice in understanding multiple means of words along with several phrases of low and high vocabulary.

Science Background, Step 7, introduces the student to trees and their live cycle.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and break-out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency and how it’s obtained through the many and simple activities within the home.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3 – STORY 9, THE NIGHT FLIGHT

Step 1, Main Idea, People Have Always Risked Their Lives to Save Others.

The Prestory Background, Step 2, tells about the many types of people who’s job it is to save others. There’s many jobs such as fire fighters, police and other first responders who arrive at accident scenes to saves lives and property.

This story is about a medical helicopter pilot and the emergency situations he’s involved with and the life saving events during his evening of flying. Pilots also have a special language they use to communicate with known as alpha numerics or the phonetic alphabet. This story shows how that language is used to talk between aircraft and an operations control center.

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated Without Interruption, shows to the reader how an emergency helicopter crew and pilot might operate and communicate with each other. It’s a wonderful story showing the reader what might happen during an emergency.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, Step 4, emphasizes; silent gh, the letter blend ‘ild’ and ending in ‘er.’ There’s several examples of phonetically regular words, double and single consonant words, compound words, multisyllable words to include spelling sentences.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, again provides a wealth of information for writing and composition. It shows situations for starting a story, synonyms for the word risk and an opportunity for a creative art activity through story illustration.

Step 6, Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, reviews the /are/ words as in rare, and asks the student to describe the story again as if telling the story to a newspaper. This exercise practices the telling of a story in difference words, allowing for the expression of higher vocabulary.

Again, phrases with lower and higher vocabulary words introduce the student to a stronger command of expressive words.

Science Background, Step 7, describes, in simple and understandable terms of how one flies a helicopter.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and break-out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency and how it’s obtained through the many and simple activities within the home.

NOTE: THIS DESCRIPTION APPLIES TO ALL 3 MODULES

LEVEL 3, STORY 10, WE CAN FLY

Step 1, Main Idea, talks about how “Adults Often make a Creative Project Better.”

The Prestory Background, Step 2, is about how the two boys in this story design and build and “airplane” in their father’s shop, but when completed, can’t quite get it out of the shop, due to it’s size.

The father comes by and assists the two boys to solve the problem and to make the airplane “fly.”

Step 3, Listening to the Story Narrated without Interruption, walks the student through the process of building an airplane, but upon completion, they can’t take it to it’s first test flight without the help of their father.

Phonics, Writing and Spelling, Step 4, shows the student the proper usage of have and seen and provides many examples and a check on learning to ensure the student understands the proper usage. This section also provides many examples with spelling, determining between fact and fancy or non factual content.

It also shows the proper usage of the ending ‘y’ rule and provides many examples of this rule in single and double consonant including compound and sight words. Blends and Digraph sounds are also shown and provides many exercises showing this concept.

Step 5, Fiction/Non Fiction Writing, provides the student with several examples and exercises to assist in writing composition. Story Starter ideas and provided to assist the student in finding something to write about along with definitions and synonyms for the word create. This helps the student to understand there are many words that can be substituted to make writing and speaking more expressive.

Step 6, Vocabulary and Expressive Speaking, this section features word definitions and matching a meaning to a word. This can be played as a game with a few students or an entire class. This is a great game for quickly improving vocabulary for any student.

An exercise is also included to find fact or opinion along with idioms about flying and phrases with low and high vocabulary.

Science Background, Step 7, is all about the pulley and how it works and what it’s used for. Simple machines that mankind has used for many years is also addressed and taught.

Step 7 includes and encourages the student to become an inventor and to think of new ways to use things. The student is encouraged to write about his invention.

In the Story Mapping section, Step 8, again we provide a way to organize any story and break-out the many and varied pieces of story mapping and show how this story has been composed. Story Mapping and organized writing is a very valuable and sought-after skill to have through one’s life.

Home Fun, Step 9, shows how parents can assist their child in the process of reading fluency and how it’s obtained through the many and simple activities within the home.